


Chapter 3: Suspicions

by verucasalt123



Series: The Story Begins [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something…off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter 3: Suspicions

**Author's Note:**

> The Story Begins - Chapter 3/30

Dean had never tried to pretend he was the metaphorical sharpest knife in the drawer (though he certainly did know what to do with any knife in any drawer, in a literal sense). He hadn’t been all that interested in school, though he could have gotten good grades if he’d tried. There were more important things on his mind. By the time he was old enough to know what their dad did for a living, he knew that he wanted to do the exact same thing. So he got passable grades and tried to fly under the radar so he could spend more time with shooting practice, training, learning the things that really _mattered_ in life, like how to kill a werewolf and what the fastest way of getting rid of a poltergeist was.

There was another thing at the top of Dean’s priority list, though, and it had been there for as long as he could remember - **take care of Sam**. He took that responsibility very seriously, no matter what it cost him. Dean had stopped thinking about what he wanted for himself a long time ago.

So it was true that Dean never finished school, that he had no freakin’ clue what his brother was talking about most of the time when he rattled off things he’d learned in chemistry or history that day. But it seemed that a high school diploma was not a prerequisite for getting a Ph.D. in _Sam_. A look, a shrugged shoulder, even a twitch of his top lip – those were all things that spoke volumes to Dean. He always knew when something was going on with his brother, and hard as it is for him to believe now, Sam actually used to like that. He asked Dean questions, he told him when there was something bothering him, he trusted Dean to make sure everything was okay, or at least as okay as it could be given their particular set of circumstances.

A lot of that had stopped over the past couple of years. Sam got quieter, put effort into hiding his tells from his brother, didn’t ask for advice, but they still did the normal brother stuff for a while. Watching movies together, arguing about which superhero was the coolest, laughing when sparring practices turned into tickle-wars. Now, though, even that was gone. It had probably been a year since they’d had more than a superficial conversation with each other, and Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to make Sammy laugh.

And he got it, he did; Sam was growing up, turning into his own person, wanted to find his own way. But his method of finding his own way wasn’t the same as Dean’s had been. The subject on which Sam was still always vocal was how much he hated their life. Wanted nothing to do with hunting. Thought moving around from place to place wasn’t fair (and it wasn’t, he’d give the kid that much, but there was no way around it). He didn’t say it to their dad much, because it usually led to some pretty ugly fights, but he said it to Dean every chance he got.

Dean hadn’t worried too much about it for a while. Honestly, where was Sam gonna go? You can’t just roll up your diploma, pack a duffle and ride off on your bike to find a new life. Sammy didn’t know a damn thing about how to exist in the world on his own, he’d never had to take care of himself because there was always someone else there to do it.

Lately, though…there was just something _not right_ going on in the kid’s head. Dean wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he damn sure knew that the months were ticking down to weeks until Sam’s high school graduation. Every now and then, he’d catch Sammy looking at him, like he was doing some kind of appraisal. And there was that last time they were at Bobby’s, when the two of them shut up real quick when Dean had walked into the room. That wasn’t like Sam, and it sure as hell wasn’t like Bobby either. Lots of nights when Sam was supposed to be doing homework, scribbling in his notebook, it didn’t seem like he was paying attention to whatever text he had propped up next to him, he was just _writing_.

A voice comes to one in the dark when the daylight tries to stifle it. So Dean didn’t want to think about what these changes meant, but sometimes, especially at night when the two of them were separated by no more than a foot or so of space, he couldn’t help but wonder. Dean wanted to know, but at the same time he was sure that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.

It wasn’t like asking the question was going to get him a straight answer anyway. So he just didn’t ask, didn’t invite the lie his brother would surely tell him, which was why he was just as blindsided as John was when Sam put all the puzzle pieces into place for them to see.


End file.
